


Rescue

by sheron



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, POV Peggy Carter, Post-Season/Series 02, Post-Season/Series Finale, Rescue, Teamwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-04 06:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10985079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron/pseuds/sheron
Summary: Jack is not having a good day. There's a kidnapping! A rescue! And a deadly case of feelings.





	Rescue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhiteLadyoftheRing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteLadyoftheRing/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy the story! Thank you to my wonderful beta Sholio for her help and encouragement.

 

Jack had been taken for two hours before they figured out where the kidnappers were holed up. The team of the SSR Agents crowded around the strategy table and tried to create a plan of attack that wouldn't result in Jack dying before they reached him. Voices kept rising as the clock ticked away. With the way Jack was taken, in brazen daylight after an old trick with a broken-down car blocking their way, they had to move fast if they wanted to find him in one piece.

Peggy couldn't wait any longer. She turned to one of the men.

"Show me the blueprints for the building again."  


 

* * *

 

When she finally kicked down the gate that protected the ventilation shaft leading into the room where they were holding Jack, Peggy was glad to see the light of the single yellow light-bulb hanging from the ceiling. Crawling through the dark and musky air-vents was best done in moderation, and this time she'd gotten turned around several times before finding her way to the block of rooms where hostages were held. Those building plans had been at least ten years out of date. 

Peggy jumped down soundlessly and crouched on the floor. Aside from Jack, the room was empty. 

Jack sat in a thick metal chair, its legs bolted into the ground with thick bolts. He looked unconscious, his head hanging on his chest. His white shirt was bloodied in several places, but Peggy didn't see any profusive bleeding. The room smelled of ozone and dirt, and when she came closer to Jack she smelled him too. He stank of sweat and blood.

One of his boots was missing and the naked foot was covered in so much blood she feared at first she was dealing with severed toes. A quick closer inspection and Peggy realized they had pulled out several of his toenails, but the rest of his foot was intact. She swallowed down the bile and anger and crouched down next to his chair, examining the cuffs that kept his hands cuffed to the metal handles. 

Looking at the state of his hands she winced. The left hand had two fingers that were crooked and swollen, clearly broken. His right wrist was badly swollen as well, there could be a break there too. There was no way he was wriggling out of these cuffs on his own, not with those injuries.

She set to picking the locks, glancing up at his head, still hanging on his chest.

"I crawled through a mile of air-ducts to get to you," Peggy said. "the least thing you can do is be awake."

"Huh?" Jack said inelegantly, lifting his head a bit. Peggy couldn't say if he recognized her. The swaying light-bulb overhead struck shadow and light into his matted golden hair.

She put a hand on his chin and tilted his head up. His right pupil was blown wide, she could barely see the grey ring of the iris. A concussion. And the corner of his lip was bleeding, but then Jack was reliable about making people angry enough they wanted to punch him.

"Any internal damage?" She pressed a quick hand to his chest patting him down over his clothing when he wouldn't respond. Her quick pat down drew no protest or signs of pain, which was reassuring. It seemed like nobody had rearranged his internal organs, so the injuries on his hands and feet had to be most of it. And that concussion, of course, that worried her the most.

She returned to picking the cuffs.

"Jack," she called, while she struggled to get one of the pins to unlock his right hand.

"Peggy?" he said muzzily. It was reassuring to hear he knew her voice. Jack lifted his head and seemed to stare right through her, as though trying to determine if she was real.

"I'm here to get you out." She unlocked his other hand as well. "Can you stand?"

"Sure, yeah," he mumbled. She helped him to his feet, at which point his knees promptly bent under him and he almost went tumbling down. With an oof, Peggy took some of his weight on her own body, letting him lean on her until he got his bearings. She saw his brown boot laying in the corner, but there was no way they would get it on his injured foot, so she gave up on that idea.

"Peggy?" Jack said again. "Is that you?"

"Yes, and we're going to walk out of here," she said patiently. "I need you to stand on your own so I can check the door."

"Daniel?" he asked.

"He's fine. The bullet hit his prosthesis. And Mr. Jarvis was more shaken than hurt."

Eventually, Jack figured out which way was up and which way down and got himself more or less centered on his feet. She walked him to the wall and propped him up while she used one of Howard's clever little inventions to manipulate the lock on the door. Once she unlocked the door and checked the hallway was empty, she went to help him again, putting one arm over her shoulders, trying not to touch his wrist in case moving it made it worse.

"Where are we going?" Jack said, slightly more coherent and aware of the rescue happening here.

"The next empty room that's out of the way." She grunted with the effort. He didn't seem to realize how much he was leaning on her, but this wasn't the time to tell him. "Once Chief Sousa leads the rescue team inside, the first thing these guys will do is try to silence you. We need to get you somewhere safe and out of the way first." 

"Good plan," he slurred the words.

"How is your head?" 

"Still attached, unfortunately," was his only refrain.

She led him into one of the locked doors. It was another room designed to function as a prison cell, but it was one where they wouldn't expect to find Jack. It would give them enough time for Daniel and the team to get to their location. She unlocked the door with Howard's device and pulled Jack inside, locking it behind them. After she got Jack settled on the bare cot by the wall, she went to look at his foot. He couldn't walk with it uncovered, he'd pick up some kind of an infection from these dirty, damp floors. She ripped off a piece of his shirt with the help of her pocket knife and set to bandaging his foot.

Jack groaned softly when she first touched his injured toes, but he didn't move and simply watched her as she worked with half-lidded eyes.

"I didn't tell them anything," he murmured.

"Hmm?" Peggy was still busy with his foot, but she liked that he was talking again. 

"They gave me something," he said. "A truth serum, I think." He sighed softly, and shivered. 

She finished with his foot and took his wrist. "Does this hurt?"

"Ow," he said instead of an answer.

"How about this?"

The response was the same, but more exasperated and loud.

"Well, you're in luck. Your wrist is probably just sprained, not broken."

"Yeah, I feel real lucky," he said sourly.

She went back over his words in her head. "What did they ask you?"

"Stuff I didn't know," Jack said. "It was all about Vernon and what he knew. Apparently, I gave the impression that I knew what I was doing." He sighed again, sort of resigned. She figured he was still working through the effects of the drug on his system, he was speaking as though he was slightly drunk. "Vernon never took me in his confidence...but they didn't believe that."

"Do you know the exact compound they doused you with?"

Jack shook his head. "If I knew what they were asking me, I would have told them." He stared at her, challenging her to look away first. When she wouldn't, he lowered his eyes to the floor. She went to check the lock on the door, wishing impatiently that Daniel would hurry up already.

"Hey Peggy?" Jack said after a moment, and when she looked over his eyes were closed as he leaned back against the wall. "I'm really fucking glad it's you."

She chalked that up to the concussion talking.

The sound of Daniel and his team attacking resonated through the walls of the building. She knew the plan was to blow the door in, but it still sounded rather close. Chalky plaster fell off the ceiling all around them, causing Jack to startle and open his eyes.

She turned to reassure him. "They are close."

"I don't want anyone to see me like this," Jack said.

"Good Heavens, man!" Peggy said exasperated. "Try to have some perspective."

"I can't help it," he groused. "It's the serum."

Peggy rolled her eyes. Even if they'd dosed him with something strong, enough time had passed since then for him to have control over his tongue. It was pure insecurity and fear talking again, under the guise of the serum, and she was getting frustrated. Peggy tried to take deep breaths and remind herself that he was injured and required compassion, not a firm slap to snap him out of this current funk.

The sounds of their cavalry was getting closer, along with the shouts of their enemies. The noise picked up and Peggy said, "They discovered that you're gone."

She pulled out her gun, and assumed her position behind the door. At the sound of doors banging open in the hallway, Jack and Peggy exchanged a look. 

"You didn't bring a weapon for me?" His whisper was barely audible.

"What, you'll pull the trigger with your teeth?" Peggy whispered back at the same volume. "That's about the only part of you that's working."

He rotated his injured wrist and she saw him swallow against the pain.

"I hate this," he said, with feeling.

After a moment to think, Peggy went and gave him her pocket knife.

"Thanks... I think," Jack said, but he looked happier to not be completely unarmed. Peggy's gesture was mostly symbolic to get him further away from the mental head-space of helpless captivity.

It didn't take much longer for the action to move close to their door. Peggy stood at the ready, but she was also starting to get reception from the radio in her ear, now that the team was close enough that the short range signal could penetrate the walls. Daniel was calling out orders, and hearing his steady baritone settled her nerves enormously.

She didn't end up having to defend the door. Outside, Daniel and his team quickly dispatched the remaining enemies and unlocked the door. Agent Martinez was the first into their room, his grimy face lighting with a grin upon seeing Peggy and Jack, relatively unharmed. He went to help Jack off the cot, the smell of gunpowder following in his wake, while Peggy's eyes went to Daniel, second through the door, his gun out.

Daniel's eyes passed over her form, checking her safety, and the relief she read on his face warmed her heart. She herself was quite happy he was unharmed.

"Don't touch me," Jack said from his position off to the side. He was using his serious voice and Peggy tore her eyes away from Daniel. Jack was staring at Martinez, who had his arms out to help him rise, but Jack's expression said he would have none of that.

"Yes, sir," the former soldier obeyed immediately, before glancing towards Peggy and Daniel with a helpless question. Peggy saw the moment Daniel's eyes ran down Jack's body, cataloging his injuries, his expression touched with concern.

Jack struggled to his feet on his own, holding on to the wall.

"I can walk," he said.

"Alright." Peggy wasn't about to argue, even if it was all macho posturing. They had to get him to the hospital to check his foot and his head, not to mention set his broken fingers and check the blood-work for the remains of whatever cocktail he'd been injected with. "Let's head out."

They filed out of the room, Daniel out front and Martinez bringing up the rear following Peggy and Jack. They met more SSR agents on the way, covering all the exits, their low voices echoing through the winding, darkened hallways. Daniel signaled okay to them, and they all started to head out. Although he walked slowly, Jack made it out and Peggy was just starting to feel some of the tension leaving her body when they finally came outside and he leaned heavily against one of the brick walls.

"One second," he said through gritted teeth. He was slowly sliding down the wall, and she could tell he wasn't aware of it. 

Before one of the other men attempted to offer their help, setting up the confrontation between Jack's needs and his ego again, she went to him first. Putting his arm around her shoulders again, she got Jack to his feet. He didn't protest, although he didn't look happy.

"I'll drive," Daniel said, and then to his men: "You take the other car."

Peggy maneuvered Jack into the vehicle, letting him sprawl on the leather backseat, and took the shotgun seat next to Daniel. He started the car, and Peggy glanced out the window, mostly to hide her face as she let out a slow, calming breath. They'd gotten through another upheaval, all of them alive. She thanked her lucky stars.  


 

* * *

 

"I'm so tired of hospitals," Jack groused when they got to the door of the one in L.A, with Peggy helping him out of the car again. 

For this, Peggy could hardly blame him. She'd been seeing rather more of hospitals than she liked over the past year, thanks mostly to Jack. At least this time she didn't fear for his survival. Her mind went back in time to seeing him in the hospital room following the gunshot that had nearly cost him his life, and her hand around him tightened involuntarily.

"What is it?" Jack turned to her, sensing the tension in her body. He had this soft look on his face that made her feel like the center of his universe. Peggy could swear he'd forgotten all about his injuries for a moment, entirely focused on whatever distress he saw in her face.

"Everything will be fine," she said, bolting that door shut. She tried to gather her courage, which had sunk somewhere into her ankles at the memories plaguing her as they walked these hallways. The smell was the same as the last time. Jack was leaning heavily against her, wincing with each step on his injured foot. In the car, he'd looked nauseous, so Peggy worried about his concussion as they made it inside the hospital's Emergency Room.

"Can we get some help here?" Daniel called to the nurses and then Jack was being swarmed from both sides by medical personnel and Peggy had to let go of him. 

"We'll be in the waiting room," Daniel called to Jack before his blond head disappeared behind one of the hospital doors.

Peggy went to his side and pushed right up against Daniel's body, until he put a comforting arm around her, drawing her close. It felt so good to be able to get that kind of warmth and comfort on demand. She hadn't had much of it since her youth, and it filled the places in her that she'd thought long atrophied. Now that she always had Daniel to lean on, she understood much more strongly what Jarvis had meant when he had told her long ago that she needed support. She could do without it, she supposed, but having it made all the difference to the way she felt about herself and what she did.

"How did the new agents do?" she said. They'd been running real missions as a team for several months now, but this was the first time they'd had to rescue one of their own. It took a certain kind of cool head to be able to think under that kind of pressure.

"They did fine," Daniel answered softly. "Martinez has leadership potential."

She smiled, because she thought so too. 

Despite the grime and tiredness settling into every pore, neither of them even thought about leaving the hospital until Jack was checked out and released. The SSR agents were posted around all the entrances to the floor, and they would post a guard wherever Jack ended up spending the night. Not that they expected an attack so soon after wiping out a major viper's nest like that, but it was best to stay safe and vigilant.

She passed the time by staring at the grey hospital ceiling and putting timestamps on the events in her head, so it would be easier to write a report later when she had to remember what went on. Daniel had let her use one shoulder for support as they tried to make the best of the uncomfortable hospital chairs in the waiting room. Not even an hour from when Jack was led away, a pretty head-nurse walked over to the two of them. 

"Agent Carter? Chief Sousa?" They'd flashed their badges earlier to get permission to be apprised of Jack's status despite the lack of blood relationship. Peggy straightened in her seat and felt Daniel do the same as the nurse approached. They both stood. 

The nurse updated them on Jack's condition with a soft voice clearly modulated to set them at ease: "Mr. Thompson is doing well. The doctor is currently reviewing the results of the X-ray from his left hand, but they told me it looks like a simple break. We've applied fresh bandages to his foot. He shows no signs of internal trauma and as for his concussion, his pupils are responsive to light so for now the best treatment is lots of rest. We can watch him for a few hours, but realistically he is free to go home as soon as the doctor is done treating his hand. If he starts showing new symptoms, he'll have to return to the hospital. Or you could try to convince Mr. Thompson to stay overnight...?" she trailed off hopefully. As though such a feat was possible. Back when he'd been shot, Jack had gotten himself checked out of the hospital as soon as he was able to walk out the door. The doctors wouldn't keep him for more than a few hours for something relatively minor.

Daniel immediately said, "Can we see him?"

The nurse hesitated. "Mr. Thompson requested to be left alone―" 

"Fair enough," Daniel was saying just as she went on.

"―but he said to make an exception if Miss Carter wanted to see him."

The nurse looked guilty saying the words, looking over at Daniel through thick eye-lashes with apology all over her body language, but Daniel took it with aplomb. 

"I'll go get us both coffee," he told Peggy, touching her arm.

She brushed her fingers over his hand, to make sure he knew she admired his understanding and composure. "Thank you, Daniel."

Peggy went to see Jack. He'd been openly chilly towards everyone else on the way out of the building where he'd been held, and she thought she could guess at the cause. He was uncomfortable with what the truth serum could make him say and overcompensated as a result. It suddenly made sense he'd ask for her alone. She knew his secrets already.

Jack sat propped up on the pillow on the hospital bed, still dressed in his work trousers but with a hospital gown over his chest to replace his muddy, bloodied previously white shirt that the staff had probably thrown away. Jack's left foot was swaddled in pristine white bandages and his right wrist was bandaged so he wouldn't be able to bend it: she'd been right, the wrist was only sprained. A male doctor with the assistance of one of the nurses was finishing the bandaging on the two fingers of his left hand: the ring finger and his pinkie were the two that had been broken.

Jack waved with the fingers of his free hand when she came in.

"How are the weary and the wounded?" Peggy said.

"Happy to be among the living," Jack said, not entirely joking. "Happy to be heading home as soon as Doc and Juliet here," he smiled at the nurse and she smiled back, flushing prettily, "finish fixing me up."

"I'm glad to hear it," Peggy said.

"We're just about done here," the white-haired doctor responded, and then launched into a bit of a speech on proper care for the splints. Peggy waited patiently for him to finish while Jack yawned, saying, "Not my first broken bone, Doc." This only made the older professional frown with clear disapproval.

When they finished and cleared out ― Nurse Juliet throwing Jack side-glances the entire time she cleaned the medical tray by the bed before leaving with one last long look ― Peggy went to sit on the edge of Jack's bed. She could have sat in a chair, but then he'd be looking down at her. Plus, she hated to admit how much that hard, uncomfortable chair reminded her of the time she spent there waiting for him to wake up after he was shot. The bed felt more comfortable, and Jack even shifted his feet to give her more room to sit. It was downright cozy. 

"Sounds like you're being released," she prompted. "How is your head? Will we have to teach you the alphabet again?"

"Marge, I can see the thought sets you aflutter."

Peggy rolled her eyes at the nickname. "So the usual memory problems, then," she said.

His lips twisted up with humour, and she had to press her own lips together to hide her smile.

"You'll need someone to make sure you make it through the night without new symptoms," Peggy said, switching to a serious tone again. 

Jack waved a dismissive hand.

"Doctor's orders." She began to rise from the side of the bed. "I'll call Daniel―"

"No!" Jack grabbed her by the hand. As she glanced down at where his fingers covered her, he squeezed it strong enough to hurt. When Peggy's eyes flashed up to meet his grey ones, he looked terrified. "No. I can't―" He swallowed, breathing harshly, "The truth serum. I can't see him until it's gone. I can't!"

He let her go, ran a hand through his hair, turned his face away.

Peggy was at a loss. "Daniel won't ask you anything."

"You just have no idea," Jack said, he squeezed the bridge between his eyes, frowning sharply. "No idea at all what it's like."

Peggy stayed silent. He wanted to talk.

"It's like a literal weight on my chest. He wouldn't even have to ask ― I'd tell him. I _can't_ see him until the serum is completely gone."

Peggy pressed her lips together. That secret of his, rearing its ugly head again. Sometimes she felt it underlay everything he did. Other times he wore a mask so complete that she thought it had all been a dream and that conversation on the plane had never happened. Regardless, Jack looked on the verge of hyperventilating at the thought of being in the room with Daniel while forced to speak the truth. 

The truth serum had likely cleared out of his system by now, but the irrational fear was harder to get rid of. Peggy sat back down and put her hand on his arm, catching his eyes with her own, trying to build a connection that had been torn by fear. 

Grey eyes met her brown ones. His right pupil was still larger than the other; he was still badly concussed.

She said, trying to have patience, "Alright. I won't call him."

He was still breathing too fast, the whites of his eyes showing. But he lowered his hand from his face, so she kept talking.

"Jack," she rubbed his upper arm through the hospital cloth, wanting to shake him out of his own private hell and trying to be gentle at the same time, "It'll be your choice to tell him." Peggy nodded, and Jack nodded with her, as though hypnotized. He wanted to trust her so badly, she could taste it. 

She said, "I promise."

Jack let out a strained breath. "Okay."

She rubbed his arm again, and then her eyes followed the length of her hand to where it touched him. Peggy thought about it. There'd been times on the front, when a human touch had meant all the difference in the world. She moved forward, telegraphing her move in case it wasn't welcome and when he didn't resist, enveloped him in an embrace. 

Jack sat still for a moment, she got a whiff of the scent of an anesthetic from the cuts on his head and neck. Then he put one arm around her shoulders, pressing her closer. He used the other hand to support himself on the bed. They stayed like this for a moment that felt like an eternity, Jack's nose mushed into her hair, his breaths growing steadier and longer. Peggy smiled, glad she'd picked right this time.

When she moved away, he looked calmer. More like his own self.

"Alright?" she said, feeling a deep sense of contentment at sitting next to him. It surprised her when maybe it shouldn't have. There was no awkwardness between them, not when they were on the same page like this. Peggy had to smile at how long it had taken to get to this point when they both wanted to be around each other without contention.

He nodded, "Go." An echo of another time. 

She got up off the bed, and went to the door ready to leave. A thought occurred to her, something she'd had percolating in the back of her head all this time.

"And I think you're wrong about Daniel," she half-turned, hand still on the door, to make sure she had his full attention. She did. "I think if you decide to trust him, you'll find that his heart is big enough."

Maybe it wasn't fair to lay that on him now, but it was necessary. 

She left him gaping slightly, without a chance to respond.  


 

* * *

 

Daniel sat in one of the plastic chairs near the reception area when she came outside. He held out her coffee to her, in a small paper cup.

"How is he?" He looked tired, yet full of nervous energy.

"Heading home before the ink is dry on the release forms," Peggy said. "You know Jack."

"Yeah," Daniel said quietly. His face seemed troubled. After a moment, he took Peggy's hand in his, squeezing it as he searched her face. "He looked pretty bad in there."

"Mostly superficial injuries," Peggy assured him, squeezing his fingers back for comfort. "The concussion is the worst of it, and the headache that comes with. The charming personality we were treated to is at least partly the result of that." The rest of the 'charming personality' was pure Jack, but they both knew the man and his flaws; it went without saying.

Still, Daniel looked uncomfortable. "He looked like I'm the last person he'd want around." His voice held a touch of bewilderment. "We got there as fast as we could, you know that, right? If we could have gotten to him earlier―" He pressed his lips together, the might-have-beens left unspoken.

"I know it. Jack knows it, too." Peggy thought about how much she could say to stop this line of thinking. "They injected him with some sort of a truth-serum, and Jack was worried about being too suggestible."

Daniel actually barked a laugh at that. "The day he takes any order from me...!"

Peggy didn't clarify that it wasn't Daniel's orders that Jack was concerned about. Actually, the one thing Jack was good about was listening to others, and he didn't need to be under the influence for that. She hoped she'd reached him earlier, but she would find out soon enough.

"But he's alright?" Daniel asked again, to be sure. 

"He remembers the interrogation, which means it wasn't scopolamine. And if he had been in a suggestible state before, you wouldn't know it talking to him now." Exasperation colored her words, even though she understood where he was coming from. Peggy was familiar with some of the more popular drugs that were used by doctors to get past the inhibitions in soldiers after the war, to get them talking about their experiences and to treat shell-shock. No doubt Jack was as well, from interrogation rather than treatment angle, even if the SSR tended to employ more straightforward methods.

"That's great," Daniel said, and immediately dampened his enthusiasm, "I mean, it's terrible this happened to Jack, but I am glad his memory isn't affected. I need his― _Jack_." His face brightened at the sight of the other man, coming out of the elevator with a crutch under one armpit. 

"Hey," Jack answered cautiously. 

He was leaning against the crutch to take the weight of his injured foot, which was swaddled in bandages and missing a shoe. That was presumably what was in the bag slung over his shoulder. She saw Jack's eyes flicker down to Daniel's prosthesis, where the bullet aimed Daniel's way had luckily splattered against the metal rather than embedding itself into the far more vulnerable flesh of his other leg. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. He took a step towards them.

She'd told him that Daniel's heart was big enough, but perhaps what she should have tried to get Jack to understand was that _his_ was, too.

Immediately, Daniel went to take the bag from Jack, and Peggy was reassured by the way Jack didn't so much as twitch, just let himself be helped. He used his crutch to make his way across the room.

"I need your statement." Daniel went straight to business, clearly hoping shop talk would cut past any remaining awkwardness. "Gotta know who you saw while they had you. We've got a limited time-frame to make sure we got all of them in custody. Are you up to looking through some photos?" He patted the folder under his arm. It had been delivered by one of the agents while they waited at the hospital, full of pictures of their suspects.

"Sure," Jack drawled, and looked relieved. "I'm gonna have to sit down though."

Peggy peered at him, but although he was still pale and his eyes looked bruised, he didn't look any worse than before. He wasn't swaying, and seemed fairly coherent. He pointed his gaze to his fingers. Ah, right, he barely had the use of one hand, and that was being used to hold the crutch.

"Can this wait until the car?" she asked.

"No problem." Daniel motioned for Jack to go ahead towards the exit, and slowly they started on their way down the wide beige hallway. 

Once they were by the car and Jack was contorting himself into the passenger seat, Daniel took the back while Peggy ended up as the designated driver. When they were seated, Daniel added as an afterthought, "I'll also need you to repeat what you told them." 

With a creak of leather, Jack twisted roughly in his seat. He glared at Daniel with a look equal parts anger and hurt.

"I didn't tell them anything," Jack said. 

"What? But what was all that about―?" Peggy saw Daniel glance her way in the rear-view mirror. "I thought they drugged you."

"Yeah. So?" Jack said belligerently, still twisted around looking to the back-seat where Daniel stared back at him, uncomfortable. In the time he'd had to compose himself after Peggy had left, Jack had evidently decided he was stronger than any truth-serum. This explained a great deal about his apparently willingness to hang around them on the way to his place, the other SSR Agents following in a separate car at a discreet distance.

Daniel picked his words carefully. "I shouldn't have assumed. We know they were after you because of your station and connection to Vernon. Anything more you want to tell us?"

Jack stared at him in mutinous silence for a long moment. "You must not think much of me, if you think I'm just gonna blab all the secrets the moment they lean on me a little," Jack said eventually, turning away and settling back into his seat.

Daniel sighed, "Jack―"

Jack looked straight ahead through the windshield at the road, a crooked smile on his lips. "I'm not that easy."

"Honestly?" Daniel said, now sounding a touch miffed as well. "I spent the whole day hoping that once they started breaking parts of your body, you'd talk and trust us to get there before they could do anything with the information. That's why we're a team. You're not on your own, here," he finished with a snap.

Oddly, the snappy tone made a corner of Jack's mouth turn up.

"I know," Jack said after a long moment, sounding almost exasperated. He looked Peggy's way, and she quickly wiped any sign of interest in the proceedings off her face. Look! Fascinating palm trees.

Jack sighed and rubbed his brow, wincing. "I can tell this is going to be an excellent twenty-four hours, if we're already at the heart-to-heart stage and we didn't even make it to my apartment."

"Oh?" Peggy brightened despite her efforts not to show it. 

"Oh," Jack repeated in a soft, mocking tone. "Don't pretend you weren't thinking of a way to keep an eye on me." 

It was like just by getting under Daniel's skin a little, he came to be alright with the world again. He had proved to himself he had control, and it was alright to dispense with keeping his distance for the time being. Inviting them in was a show of trust on his part, as much in himself as in Daniel.

"Seems like the thing to do, doesn't it?" Daniel said, ostensibly to Peggy, his eyes on the back of Jack's head.

Jack slouched down in the leather seat, the picture of unconcern. After Peggy had learned to read him, it was obvious that the amount of effort Jack put into projecting carelessness was directly proportional with how serious he was about the matter at hand.

"Well," Peggy said, carefully wrapping every emotional note of their exchange in trappings of logic. "It's sensible to stay together until we know for sure their group is dismantled. We don't have to post agents outside separate buildings." She patted her purse, lying between the seats and holding her gun. "Would that be alright with you, then?"

Jack was trying to sound disinterested, but a note of earnestness lingered in his words. "Yeah, I think I've got enough room for the two of you." In his home and in his heart. 

His eyes cut at Peggy, and for a moment their eyes met and held.

They were on the same page about that.

 

**Fin.**


End file.
